Why a house full of pickles, you ask?
When we were officially a couple, soon to be
wed, our close friends started to combine our surnames - one Gillis, one Perkins, and you
get Gerkins. Over the year we resisted being
named after tiny pickled cucumbers, but
eventually, these things stick.
And now we are three.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

It’s been a silly one - I’ve absolutely no willpower these days and have been gorging myself on sweets and under feeding the baby nutrients, hoping that shooting cans of V8 will make up for the lackadaisical vegetable consumption. But that’s what Christmas is all about, right?

Been working a lot - worked Christmas Eve until noon, then planned to hurry home for a grilled cheese sandwich and some quality time spent making side dishes for the friendly gathering planned for the evening. A flaming transistor on Young Street put an end to that plan, and led to me ordering pizza from Chad’s and eating it in the chilly house. Fortunately, we had electricity again by mid-afternoon, so I was able to get brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes into the oven with plenty of time to spare.

We packed them up and hiked down to our friends’ condo, where the turkey was just starting to smell amazing. With cooperation from four couples, a delicious holiday dinner was soon on the table and we popped our crackers, wore our silly hats and laughed the night away.

John and I had our little private Christmas Eve when we got home, exchanging ornaments, and reading The Night Before Christmas to the baby. We were abed before it got too late, and slept all snuggled and lovely til Christmas morning came.

Didn’t sleep in as long as I would have liked - these days my body doesn’t always cooperate with being a lie-abed. We opened some very sleepy stockings and had a lazy morning anyway. Eggs with faces for breakfast, soft boiled with soldiers. I seem to have imposed all the Perkins family traditions on poor John. I do make sure he gets his eggnog pancakes on Boxing Day if I can, though!

Despite some planned scaling back on presents (we bought each other some big ticket items - a Zune for John and emerald earrings [to complete my set!] for me, and then we asked for mostly money towards a new camera from our parents) there was still an overwhelming amount of stuff under the tree! And then just as we’d gathered up all the wrapping paper and were trying to decide whether to eat lunch at home or go to Mum’s and eat there, my sister called from Mum’s and let us know she was on her way.

We packed up our presents for them (and the Wii) and were soon on our way, where the overwhelming haul continued, with some truly adorable gifts received all around both trees! Even little Petey found himself with a small haul, including socks and stuffed animals, and John’s old baby kilt. (Cutest thing ever.)

With the opening finished, we settled ourselves in for a good afternoon of silly party games, consumed another delicious turkey dinner, and watched Love, Actually - quality holiday film or what?

Boxing Day was more lazing around and Wii-ing (my mother is pretty hilarious and not at all bad at Wario) until poor John had to go into work. I puttered about making soup and cookies and chilling out.

Saturday was sort of a cleaning and shopping and crazy decompression day. John worked the late shift again, so it was sort of weird to be home alone two evenings in a row, but I made up for it by going to bed early.

Sunday we got to see Eden! And Michael! And Izzy! And a bunch of other friends who came by for a little party, with punch and all. It was too short a time with one of our favourite little families - we don’t see enough of them now they’re in Ottawa.

Monday I totally couldn’t get out of bed, so I snoozed for an extra hour and skipped lunch. I ended up taking two hours vacation in the afternoon so John and I could do some Boxing Week shopping. We picked up some bits and bobs at Mic Mac, then walked pretty much all of Dartmouth Crossing, completely failing to buy a new camera and not having dinner until quarter to eight. But the Festive Specials made up for it, and it wasn’t ridiculously late.

The most exciting part of the whole adventure was the giant bang and shudder of the bus in the middle of Dartmouth. We originally thought we’d been rear-ended, but good, but it actually seemed that one of the radiator pipes had burst. Everyone was piled off the bus and thought they’d be stuck at the stop for half an hour, but they ended up bringing us a replacement.

On the way back from the Crossing, we passed the 10 going back to Halifax just as we pulled into Mic Mac - hey Metro Transit, no fair!

And tonight is New Year’s Eve! The final date in the Season of Delight! (Save Epiphany, which I mostly just use as a day to take down my decorations and stow them for next year.) Note to self: Make Christmas Card list - for real this time.

I don’t know if I’ll make it to midnight or not! I’ll certainly try, but I have strange waves of sleepiness and it’s hard to predict my stamina from one day to the next. I know for sure that we have early-bird dinner reservations for a hopefully glorious feast at Brooklyn Warehouse. I know for sure that there’s also a bottle of dealcoholized pink champagne in my fridge due to guests who are much more refined than we.

So in short, I hope all who are reading had a wonderful Christmas and that 2009 is everything you dream of. Me, I’m just a couple of weeks away from the legendary third trimester, and sooner than we can really imagine, we’ll be three.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Petey is a big kicker/wiggler/roller! It is usually very reassuring, but when he starts playing volleyball on my belly button, or pretending my cervix is a soccer ball he's dribbling, it can get a little old. His favourite time to go at it is also typically when I am in meetings or having important conversations. Also bedtime. Sometimes he also stretches really hard, and that... that is not comfortable.

Additionally! My belly button is observably shallower, which is kind of cool, but also bizarre, because my uterus just barely comes up that far.

Uh, signs and symptoms... hm... some pulling and discomfort in hip-butt-stomach region, nothing serious, this tendancy to see stars if I stand up too fast after picking something up off the ground, occasional mild heartburn (nothing like when I was, what, 16 weeks? I think my stomach must have been pinched then or something), generally I feel pretty damned good.

I am even sleeping better, for the most part, without benefit of wedge-pillow (which never materialized) or snoogle-thing. If I go to bed feeling like I am sort-of, maybe, hungry then I will regret it, though, as it will translate into uneasy sleep and cereal at 4 a.m., most times. I am not consistently more hungry than I used to be... I mean, when I am hungry, I am HUNGRY and must eat RIGHT NOW (I always have a granola bar. Unless I have just eaten it.) but I can't say I'm consistently getting the extra food I am supposed to need. Then again, it's not like I'm keeping track.

Doctor's office this afternoon (should have been last Friday, but she rescheduled me) and we'll see if I'm 23 weeks on Friday or was 23 weeks last Saturday... The ultrasound date matches my conception date (I am pretty darned certain about it) and so maybe we'll revise it up. No more than that, though, Petey! I need to finish next semester! My appointment is at 2 and I am trying to decide whether to come back to work or take the rest of the afternoon as vacation... there's a holiday social, but if she's behind, it could be 3 before I'm back. Is it worth it for 1.5 hours, or should I just go home, run errands and bake?

Clothes are a little frustrating - I like my shape, but I am finding it hard to dress my shape. I do not want to acquire an entire new winter wardrobe, but I think most of my warmer sweaters are going to get too short pretty soon. This is mostly only a problem if I get to a point where even my bigger coat won't button. I am pretty warm these days anyway. I suppose all of this is just a good excuse to go Boxing Day shopping... How handy that the 27th is a Saturday... (Stores in NS are closed on actual Boxing Day.)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

We got up at like 5 on Friday in order to get everything together and into a cab by 6 a.m. Delightful friends were cat-sitting, so there were no cat worries, but he still is funny when he senses something's up.

The airport was entirely uneventful, well, aside from the part where the strap broke on the bag we were using as a carry-on (whose zipper had already failed on this summer's road trip.) We ended up turfing it and throwing all our stuff into this Trader Joe's reusable shopping bag that I carry around.

A short flight later and we were on the ground in Boston, where we navigated the shuttle and the T to our hotel, no problems. Was a nice enough room, somewhere to rest your head and not much more. We were directly located between two hospitals though, so there was a lot of siren noise much of the time - it's funny what you can get used to though.

We rested for a little while, but were starving after several hours on the move, so we ended up grazing on the hot bar at the Whole Foods next to the hotel. From there we wandered our way through Beacon Hill, took a look at State House, and crossed the Boston Common, taking in the Nova Scotia Christmas tree (which they'd lit just the day before.)

We started poking through the stores after that, waiting to hear from [info]ruthling who was putting in her last few hours before lunch. When we found her we did a whirlwind trip through Faneiul Hall and Quincey Market and right on down to the New England Aquarium.

Let me tell you, ladies and gents, that is a stellar place! A whole schwack of penguins, an exhibit on jellyfish, all kinds of pretty exotic things, and a giant four-story tank with sharks and giant turtles and all kinds of lovely fish. The staff are really passionate and helpful and will come right up and start telling you about the animals as you're watching them. We even got to watch them feeding the penguins!

Then we took in a bit of the North End where John and R got cannoli and I had a waffly cooky thing, then down town for beer/pop and we all hung out in a downtown crossingish bar until it was time to meet R's husband G. Dinner at Pho Pasteur was super tasty, and then John and I were exhausted.

I had a bath back at the hotel and when I got out and flopped on the bed, Mr. Petey had a hell of a kick party.

Saturday we got up and headed for Cambridge, where we did a bit of shopping and wandered Harvard. John's cold was making him a bit miserable and cranky, which was wearing off on me, so we eventually came in out of the cold and headed for Newbury street to look for somewhere to lunch.

We found the most bizarre restaurant with an identity crisis. Something Joe's. It was sort of dressed up to look like fine dining, but then it had this sort of patriotic theme, with the waiters in American flag ties and everything... and a pretty standard mid-range restaurant sandwiches-pasta-mains menu. Still, I had a peppered burger and it was very tasty.

We wandered Newbury street then, until it was getting cold and dark and we'd reached the other T station. Lots of interesting shops and galleries along there! We sacked out in the hotel room for a while, then went downtown to look for somewhere nice for dinner. After a bunch of wandering in the cold, we ended up at the reasonably-notorious Legal Seafood. It was busy, so we went to the bar to wait for a table, then ended up being convinced to dine right there, which was a very good decision, as the Montreal bartender was a real pro. The food was really very good as well - we even finished off the night with some mocha ice-cream bon bons, and did not regret it.

Sunday dawned pretty snowy, so once we'd Finagle'd a Bagel (these shops have a pretty fancy assembly line, let me tell you!) we headed for the Museums. We looked at both the Gardner and the Fine Arts Museum and thereby killed most of the day. They were both quite the experience! So much amazing art! Had a weird moment in the Gardner where Petey decided to stretch really hard against my tummy while we were in this poky, dim, not very well ventilated gallery of religious artifacts... I had to high-tail it to the next room that looked out over the central courtyard to deal with the lightheadedness that accompanied.

We had some amazing, cheap Mexican food across the street from our hotel for dinner, then a little rest and change before heading back downtown to the Orpheum to see Black Kids and Vampire Weekend. The Orpheum is this Vaudville-era theatre, with high balconies up all kinds of stairs and beautiful architecture around the stage proper, murals, the whole deal. The rest of the building was a little run down, and I must admit that the way the floor swayed when people were dancing did not make me feel very safe. After all the walking we'd done that weekend, the four flights of stairs to our seats were not all that welcome either. Still, it was a pretty amazing show, and the crowd was really, really into it. We had fun!

Monday we dedicated mostly to more shopping, heading downtown, along Charles Street and back up to Newbury. It was bitterly cold, though, so after we took refuge in the beautiful public library for a while, we decided we'd be just as well off grabbing a bite at the hotel and heading for the airport.

Ran into some people from Church there - on the same flight back. They'd been in Boston with some friends from Ontario. It was kind of cool to chat - they have little girls about 7 and 4, so we've been periodically watching them parent for years.

Had some weird delays back in Halifax because the gate wouldn't attach properly to the plane, but otherwise we got back with little event. We sure were tired when we got here though! And I must admit my hip ligaments haven't been the same since...